Hey!
I had a chance to chat with Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment CEO, Scott O’Neil, this week about a bunch of stuff including his new book, Be Where Your Feet Are.
I’ll be sharing the podcast version of our conversation later this week once the editing is done, but I’d say that I started out really enjoying the book after struggling to read lately. But, after talking with Scott, I came away feeling like I really knew him a lot better.
As a teaser, I started out the conversation asking him what kind of book he would write if he was starting right now and Scott pointed to two things:
- Hope
- With the realization that folks are struggling
Having written this note to you with maybe two or three interruptions over the years, I got to thinking about the ongoing conversation we have here each week and what three things I hope folks will take out of the pandemic.
But, first, for y’all in Boston, I will be in Boston on Thursday and hanging out at the Trillium Brewpub outside of Fenway Park from 6-8. So if you are in the area, swing by and grab a pint and let’s see each other in person.
Back to the three things I want folks to take from the pandemic:
- Be People Focused!
- Be Effective! Not Just Right!
- Use mindfulness
Let me explain each one.
Be People Focused:
Again, you’ll have to listen to the whole conversation to get to the good stuff. But we finally got around to some sports business stuff at the end of the conversation and I asked Scott what he hoped had changed in sports business due to the pandemic.
To paraphrase, he talked about how the business of sports needed to get back to making sure that the focus was on bringing people together because folks need it.
That was the theme of my talk at Marvel Stadium for the Australian Football League’s Fan Day in 2019 so I was early to this.
I’ve always loved the Peter Drucker idea of being a social ecologist and one that looked at business through the lens of the people involved…which is all that really matters anyway.
Coming through the pandemic, I hope that we all step back and think about putting people first. And, we try to make more decisions based on what is good for people.
Be Effective! Not Just Right!
This one sticks with me a lot because I can remember when I was younger and I always needed to “win” the argument or have the “right” answer.
At what cost?
What do I mean here?
In a lot of situations, we like to jump right to the answer. We may even have the right answer, but we might not achieve our goals.
How does this play out in real life?
In Australia, I chatted with the employees of a friend’s business about how to become more effective at getting buy-in on their ideas with their CEO.
My advice was quite simple, but I think it sums up being effective over being right pretty well because what I told them was that you have to focus on telling your boss the important information for the executive team to understand how a decision, investment, an idea will positively impact the business in their language, not yours.
That’s being effective. Helping people see the world through your eyes and you do that by walking them through the process, putting things in their language, and being willing to listen.
Being right is jumping to the answer, digging your heels in, and just expecting folks to get it. Or, not even worrying about people getting it or not.
Use Mindfulness:
The final piece is using mindfulness to help you control your stress.
I’ll admit I’d been trying to build a consistent meditation practice for a while because I just often need that little break to keep my focus, but during the pandemic I’ve really dedicated myself to getting that practice locked in.
Currently, I’m good for about 10 minutes at least once a day using the Insight Timer to help keep me on track.
What is it about mindfulness that helps?
Scott had a good way of talking about his own meditation practice when he said his mindfulness helped with three things:
- Finding peace
- Finding quiet time
- Finding yourself
This hits for me as well because I can definitely find myself just chasing after activities, needing that quiet time and peace. And, one of the big ideas I learned about meditation from a book called The Ultimate Secrets of Total Self-Confidence was that meditating would help you calm your mind to the point you were able to gain some insights and activate your intuition.
As for developing quiet time and peace, another great resource has been Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book, Wherever You Go, There You Are. This is a book that I heard Anderson Cooper mention as helpful to him and it is a great guidebook to help you learn meditation and take some of the mystique off of it so you can actually practice meditation.
Why am I harping on meditation?
Because of the idea of toxic stress and how toxic stress is something all of us have been dealing with for more than a year. Mindfulness is one of the key ways to manage this kind of stress along with a good diet, sleep, and exercise.
If I could get you to buy in to one of these ideas, great! If I get you to buy into all three?! Holy winning Batman!
See y’all next week!
Dave
P.S. If you are a dad celebrating today: Happy Father’s Day!